1. I concur with David R. Dow’s analysis of the Trayvon Martin situation. Leaving the personal elements of this tragedy aside, there is something unsettling about Florida’s departure from 1200+ years of common law on self-defense.

2. Yves Smith discusses how to fix the nexus between the broad version of banking and the government.

3. Sullivan has more truthy-sounding analysis of Romney’s persona through a Mormon-like lense. (Sully’s “Mormon friend” sounds a lot like everyone’s “black friend” sometimes, but how much original research could that guy have time to do?)

1. The opening paragraphs of this post on food security at Naked Capitalism get at one of my fundamental problems with libertarianism. It is a basic fact that American markets, in the form they are in today, depend heavily on state sponsorship to an extent that they would not be recognizable without it.

A truly conservative party would be pushing marriage equality, as the Tories are in Britain. What the GOP is, in stark contrast, is not a conservative party governing a modern society. It’s a radical fundamentalist and anti-government religious movement, dedicated to a core rejection of almost everything modernity brings but money.

2. Writing in Salon, Troy Williams overstates the case of Mormons Who Fear Romney. Sure, a few Mormons aren’t excited about Romney (ahem), but I think the vast majority of the flock thinks he is very good for the church.

I enjoyed this Jon Stewart interview of Madeleine Albright. The latter stands out as one of our brighter public servants of the last several decades, combining a formidable intellect with wit and a warm humanism.

I thought the comments about the need to balance idealistic and realistic tendencies were spot on. And her answer on how the US should handle the Arab Spring, where democracy leads to the election of leaders unpalatable to US interests: trust the democratic ideal and let it work, but also make sure it includes democratic checks and balances such as mechanisms for regular future elections.